The Fabelmans: How Spielberg Recreated His First Films

Steven Spielberg’s The Fabelmans

With Gabrielle LaBelle, Michelle Williams, Paul Dano…

What is it about? A deeply intimate portrait of a 20th-century American childhood, Steven Spielberg’s The Fabelmans immerses us in the film director’s family history that shaped his personal and professional life. From the story of a single young initiate striving to realize his dreams, the film explores romantic relationships, artistic ambitions, sacrifice and moments of clarity that allow us to take an honest and tender look at ourselves and our parents.

Passionate about cinematography, Sammy Fabelman spends his time filming his family. If he is so encouraged by his mother Mitzi, gifted with an artistic temperament, his father Bert, an eminent scientist, considers his passion primarily a hobby. Over the years, Sam has become a family history documentarian, turning his camera on his parents and sisters! He even makes increasingly sophisticated little amateur movies starring his friends and his sisters. But when his parents decide to move to the west of the country, he discovers a shocking reality about his mother that destroys his relationship with her and destroys his future and those close to him.

Sammy Fabelman movies

As a teenager, Steven Spielberg made several films in Arizona with friends and relatives, including last gun fight 8-minute western; A 40-minute war film titled Nowhere to escape; and fire lightThe $500 sci-fi alien movie that inspired Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

In order to create Sammy Fabelman’s films and reconstruct his filming, it was first necessary to collect the right material. Steven Spielberg and Tony Kushner wanted to show Sam’s progress using 8mm turret cameras – Kodak Brownie, Eumig and Bolex – to show his growing mastery of shooting technique. Sam takes the next step with the Arriflex 165 by switching to 16mm. Originally, Spielberg wanted to edit his films on Sam’s 8mm joystick machine – the same instrument that the filmmaker used as a child and which was not easy to find on eBay. But the director changed his mind because the screen was too small for him. The team ended up using a Mansfield Fairfield 8mm Action Editor tabletop and retooled it for their needs.

For Sam’s versions The last weapon and There is nowhere to escapeSpielberg shot some of the pictures himself. He admits that the quality of Sam’s films at Fabelmans far exceeded his achievements at the time: “I would love to revisit my 8mm films with the same amateurish side that characterized my teenage years, but I couldn’t resist the urge to find a better place for my camera in 2021 when I shot the film I found in 1961. He was stronger than me.”

A tribute to mother figures

Through the character of Mitz, the Fabelmans paint a portrait of a mother who, like many women of her generation, had to navigate her career, her ambitions, and her aspirations to conform to society’s expectations and norms. Caring for others. There is one sequence in particular, Tornado, that is Spielberg’s special tribute to his mother and her view of the world: “My mother always encouraged me – metaphorically – to chase tornadoes my whole life.”

Screenwriter Tony Kushner was also raised by his mother, Sylvia Kushner, a professional bassoonist who recorded with Stravinsky and performed at the New York City Opera. She ended her musical career to raise her children when the family moved from New York to Lake Charles, her husband’s hometown. According to Kushner, Mitzi represents the women of the time who sacrificed their dreams and tried to let them go. “This is a generation of women who didn’t know feminism. They knew there was going to be a phenomenal change, but it hasn’t happened yet, and they’ve remained captive to archaic world orders.”

An emotionally involved director

The shooting caused unexpected emotions in Spielberg. The director promised himself that he would remain professional and keep his distance from his subject, but once on the set, things got complicated: “The story brought back real memories. It was both delirious and strange for me to relive the events that actually happened and see them before my eyes. I’ve never experienced anything like it.”. Sometimes the filmmaker even forgot to say “Cut!”, engrossed in the scene.

On the first day of filming, when he discovers the reconstruction of the family home, the director admits: “I really had to take it upon myself.. Faced with finding Paul Dano and Michelle Williams in her parents’ shoes, she adds: “I could see my mother and father. I lost a little leg. Michelle and Paul were lovely: they came to see me, they took me by the hand and we hugged very tightly. It was the beginning of a very beautiful friendship.”

A long-term project

The Fabelmans is a project that Steven Spielberg has been thinking about for a long time. However, he did not seriously consider solving this problem until establishing a strong relationship with Tony Kushner, a playwright and screenwriter, winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Tony, Emmy and many Oscar nominees.

The two men first collaborated in Munich in 2005, and it was during this shoot that Kushner asked Spielberg when he decided to become a director. He didn’t know it, but Kushner had just asked the Fabelmans a deeply intimate question.

The two people developed it in parallel with their joint projects, taking advantage of the downtime on the set. Their conversations about Lincoln led to treatment of another project that they decided to abandon, inspired by the events that occurred after the events described in The Fablemans. Then preparations for West Side Story, which required the actors to rehearse intensively for the choreography, gave the duo time to continue working.

Moreover, after West Side Story, the director felt an urgent need to finish the script: his father, Arnold Spielberg, whose health had been deteriorating for several months, died in August 2020. (His mother, Leah Adler, is dead. She disappeared four years ago.) Then came the pandemic: “When my health deteriorated, I wondered what I wanted to leave behind and what central issue I wanted to address”.

Through remote meetings via Zoom, Spielberg confided other memories to Kushner, who was taking notes. After the first version of the script in September 2020, Kushner and Spielberg began new writing together, starting on October 2, three days a week, at a rate of four hours a day.

Sammy Fabelman

Casting director Cindy Tolan aims to find two actors who play Sam at different ages. Newcomer Matteo Zorian Francis-Deford plays little Sammy, who discovers his vocation at the age of 6 after seeing the world’s largest marquee.

For Gabrielle LaBelle, Steven Spielberg jokes: “I was looking for someone much more beautiful than me.” More seriously, he adds: “I chose a guy with an insatiable curiosity because that’s a trait I’ve always had. And as a person, Gabe is very curious.”.

When she first passed, LaBelle knew almost nothing about the role or the connection to Spielberg, except that the character “He was smart and knew himself well”. During the second audition, he spoke to Spielberg via Zoom, and after the director calmed the young actor down, LaBelle launched into a monologue in which Sam explains to his father that he resents him for moving to California. “Steven told me he didn’t want to imitate me”– says the actor.